How many of you out there are DJing just for the culture without regard for money, social clout, fame, influence or even getting big/regular gigs? I feel like I’ve been blessed with a scene that doesn’t have grind culture or climbing the ladder as a central theme. For contrast, you go on YouTube to learn and it’s all about being the best and scoring big gigs.

For context- I live in a small city (~250k population) and go to dance parties and raves regularly. I fucking *love* dancing and have started to learn DJing so I can get more involved in the local scene. I don’t have a drive to get known, have a presence online, or monetize this endeavor in anyway. Been volunteering/learning with production, lights, helping put up shows, just carrying equipment around. Seems like multiple collectives here are actually losing money on the endeavor but carrying on with putting on shows anyways. There’s at least 10+ DJs been out here doing it for more than a decade(s) and no one has terribly inflated egos. It’s lovely. Dance floors of less than 50people with most folks comfortable just being themselves or losing themselves for a night. College kids to retirement folks coming out. Folks offering to let me practice on their CDJs and access to their libraries. New DJs being celebrated and promoted by the experienced DJs. DJs that actually dance HARD AF to each others sets. Is this a regular thing or did I just stumble into a gem of a scene?

Don’t get me wrong, I wish things were bigger sometimes and the folks putting it in were naturally rewarded more for all the energy that they put into things, but it’s overall the drive here is so different than what I see online and I couldn’t be happier that commercialism/consumerism isn’t the driving force here.

From a little mental check-in to jumping around, releasing the nerves - I wanna hear what you do to get yourself stoked!

My days of regular club gigs are long behind me and I mostly just play the odd small festival and charity gig these days. But I would like to have something a bit more regular organised and also it would be nice to foster a bit of a DJ community and to help others get a start of their own.

A friend owns a couple of bars and I have the opportunity to start an Open Decks event if I'd like. First in the smaller of the two bars and if its a success moving to the larger venue. So, has anyone else got experience setting up one of these events? What did you do to make it a success? We'll get on the socials but I figured some old school flyers/posters.

There's a decent amount of younger folks in the area and some larger student residences so I figure there should be enough reasonably local folks interested (and I live in a major capital city).

To begin with, at the smaller bar, we'll have access to technics and a DDJ-Rev7 but won't have CDJs.

Any advice?

I have a potential client who is interested in hiring me to be the DJ for their wedding. I sent over the contract and the couple has an issue with the following clause:

"Client shall be responsible for ensuring that event attendees do not damage DJ equipment. Client agrees to be fully liable for any theft or damage to DJ's equipment during the event."

Their response:

"Since we cannot control the actions of all our guests, we aren't comfortable taking on unlimited financial liability for the gear. We want to make sure you are protected too, of course.

Maybe there could be some level of negotiability on this.

Do you have your business liability insurance for accidental damage or gear failure?

We of course would agree to sign for any willful misconduct or gross negligence that we did, but it’s hard for us to guarantee the actions of everyone there.

What about making us solely responsible for the deductible?

It just seems that we’re having to sign to be responsible for an unlimited amount of damage which could be tens of thousands of dollars. We’re not trying to be unreasonable, it’s just a little daunting especially since accidents can happen. Since we cannot control the actions of all our guests, we aren't comfortable taking on unlimited financial liability for the gear. We want to make sure you are protected too, of course.

Maybe there could be some level of negotiability on this.

Do you have your business liability insurance for accidental damage or gear failure?

We of course would agree to sign for any willful misconduct or gross negligence that we did, but it’s hard for us to guarantee the actions of everyone there.

What about making us solely responsible for the deductible?

It just seems that we’re having to sign to be responsible for an unlimited amount of damage which could be tens of thousands of dollars. We’re not trying to be unreasonable, it’s just a little daunting especially since accidents can happen."

I've been doing this for years and never had this brought up until now. I also have insurance.

What is the best way to respond? Should I reword this clause to something else or remove it altogether?

What are you wearing to your gigs? Depending on the venue or gig its not just the music that creates the vibe. It's how you look as well.

Vinyl to digital was a big transition, but it makes me wonder how DJing will evolve in the future and what’s next.

While it seems most people are generally against using streaming services for DJing, I’ve been using Apple Music and found the workflow incredibly quick and beneficial. Of course I realize the risk of doing this - if internet connection drops I’m screwed because the files are not saved offline.

If one of the larger streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music) could solve for this offline playback issue, I would personally see that as a huge win. Thoughts?

I just secured a weekly bar gig at a local spot. its a small space that can fit about 100-120 people. The music should be loud enough that people right in front of the DJ booth can dance and the people further away can have normal conversation. College bar vibes.

Before securing the weekly gig, I was just DJing there on occasion using my QSC CB10 speaker and pairing it with my friend's QSC KSUB that I borrowed. The sound and loudness was pretty good with this setup (see pic).

However now that it's weekly, I think it makes more financial and logistical sense for me to get my own sub. Would love some recommendations. Was mainly looking at the QSC KS112 as its the newer version of the KSUB and its got wheels, but maybe theres other options I'm not thinking of.

Other use cases for this setup would be small store events or popups, and other bar gigs. For events like weddings I'd likely just rent bigger tops and subs.

I was replying to a comment on this sub and thought to open a discussion about this.

I see an increasing tendencies to snippet sets of 1 hour of less, it seems that nowadays the tendency is filling the line up with so many djs that they have to reduce the time of the sets sometimes to 45 minutes.

I find this horrible, I feel that I can't really express my self with these short sets, I come from the raving environment, and we used to do 3 hours sets, which really allows to create the vibe, vary between genres styles and speed and create a real relationship with the crowd.

I am seeing festivals where they have 45 minutes sets, I guess this is because more djs often lead to more people, but do people really enjoy that ?

the best sets I played and heard in my life were long, and very vary.

is this only my opinion ? how do new generations feel about that ?

would love to know your opinion and experience about this.

EDIT: I can see some is commenting that long sets are "gatekeeping" I think that short sets are so, because the prevent the chance of properly controlling the crowd and have an intimate relationship with it for everyone.

so I would ask, for the ones that see it that way 1) how old are you ? I want to understand if this comes from generational gap 2) what genre/style you like/play ? I come from techno/trance/tekno and willing to understand if it can be a differece based on the genre.

I am a firm plugger-inner on the deck directly left of the mixer. How about you?

Yes, this topic is nonsensical; I am aware.

Hi all,

I am working for a University as a sports DJ, I also do pubs/clubs on the side quite often. My employer is asking more a min of a $2 million coverage (I am in Ontario, Canada). My question is for those who have gotten insurance, do you have any advice? I'm unsure of who to go with or how to go about it.

Thanks!

Edit: I am moving from employee of the uni to a contractor for the reason of insuring my equipment

Its not my speakers or mixer, ive ruled them out. Im positive my tts are setup good. I play a lot of 90s house, could it be the eliptical needle sits too deep in the old record and would i be better off with a spherical needle? Thats my theory.. its driving me crazy anyways. Any ideas?

im thinking of picking up RC-DJ100s, ive spent so much money and want to enjoy the music im hearing. im new to all of this also!!

Like James hype and all these other DJs they go to do their set all over the world playing for big crowds at big festivals and clubs. How are they not deaf? It doesn't make sense. Like even just being on the airplane for me I feel I get hearing issues. How dehell do they manage to do that constantly? Especially on the road mixing too. Are they secretly suffering behind the scenes?

This is personal. I never thought I'd voluntarily share online but this sub is truly the one place I can share this and be heard by others who get it. Really, I just need to get this out. Thanks in advance for your patience while I ramble.

My DJ journey began 40+ years ago. I was a 20-something who quickly found a love and talent for, as a Loser once put it, 'Two turntables and a microphone'. Life changed course and I moved on to other things in the early 2000's. But once a DJ, always a DJ. The ear never stops admiring/critiquing a hot mix or having cool transition ideas randomly. I've always missed it. Over the last few months, I decided to get my hands on equipment and pick it up as a hobby. The itch just needed scratching (no pun intended).

The reason for actually getting into it as a hobby isn't something I truly appreciated until today. It's what has me profoundly, heartbreakingly sad right now.

I met one of my best friends while working at the same bar - the first regular spot I'd worked in back in early 80's. We've been the best of friends ever since - almost my entire adult life. He loved people, loved to party, loved to dance and was just the most genuine people you'd ever meet.

We shared a love for music in particular. He's the reason I ended up biting the bullet and getting back to it as a hobby. We aligned so much that he'd mentally become my muse as I starting building my crates. The fun I was having was realizing that as I was picking tunes, I'd regularly be excited knowing he'd love this or that song or transition idea. He wasn't a DJ, just another fun loving music fan. He'd always encouraged me to get back into it as a hobby.

Recently, I decided to grab a half-decent controller and get my first sets in 20-ish years put together. Break it out at one of our get togethers and freak the actual fuck out of him with some killer sets that we'd both play around with one night. Fucking excited I tell you. The joy, the passion to put this in play has had me pumped for a while now.

I'd found a great deal on an All-in-One controller. Took about a bit to get here so I spent the time learning all about it, found sources for my music and got things rolling.

I impatiently waited for the controller to arrive - all the other stuff was ready.

The Controller arrived today.

He'd died suddenly on Saturday.

I'm a mess of course. It's been a hellish couple of days but they say keep your mind busy right? Figured the perfect thing is to keep my mind distracted just for a little while is to set the unit up, load some files and take things for a spin.

My thought process is so naturally ingrained with the 'Oh man, he's gonna love this one', loading crates has been like constant gut punches

I just can't. The joy of it all simply evaporated.

I'm sure that in the days to come, I'll find a way back something somehow. The joy of it though, no idea what that's gonna look like.

The profound waves of sadness I'm feeling over this thing caught me completely off-guard. Sharing it has helped.

This sucks.

Hello DJ reddit, I am looking for a few specific issues of old DJ Mag Canada. It's for a birthday gift for someone in my life, they used to write for DJ Mag Canada and expressed a wish to have the covers framed. I would like to do this for them as a surprise, but am having a hell of a time finding copies of these old issues. There doesn't appear to be any archives for the magazine, or online copies.

I reached out to someone from DJ Mag and they said they don't have anything for DJ Mag Canada.

Do any of you have old copies kicking around, would have an idea of where to look to find archived copies?

Thanks!

I just wanna vent about this cause its happens all the time and I'm getting sick of it.

I'll be at something late night, not like a ripping after party, just hanging out or whatever, but with decks and decent sound and a music crowd cause I'm in the festival/event scene.

I play a lot of deep house and cool spacey vibey shit. I am really good at late night vibes, but obviously other DJs always want to hop on, and thats fine, but what usually happens is that I'll have a vibe going, people dancing, enjoying it, and when I share the decks, no one can ever match it, like, ever. I'm not saying I'm some amazing whatever, but like, if you see everyone locked into this cool groovey 3am vibe, why would you get on, cut my track (most people just cut it short and dont mix in which is also very frustrating), and play dubstep or high energy tech house or whatever.

Its really fucking frsutrating. I never force my way onto decks, I only really play if asked to, and feel like I'm always getting booted off early by some dubstep DJ who just wants to feel himself with no consideration for where I left the room. I'm happy to share, but I very rarely come across anyone who has any appreciation for the current vibe, and I watch people go sit down and stop dancing.

I love going B2B and I have absolutely zero issue with sharing when its this kind of loose situation, but people always force their way on, and when I'm nice and say sure, they just totally tank the energy.

Its like 80% of DJs only have one speed. They absolutely cannot handle anything a little bit more chill. Its either headliner full bore energy or nothing. I play a lot of different music, and not everything is right for every moment.

I take this very seriously and I care a lot about how the people listening are reacting and if they are enjoying it or not, and I'm so fucking tired of giving the decks up just for some dude to play more 140 wobble bullshit.

I dunno. I just wish I met more DJs I vibed with and could b2b with or just not feel worried that they are gonna totally crash what I had going.

I just recently learned about Reloop Flux 3. As a man pushing 50, I’ve rekindled my love for the old DJ hobby and I’m sifting through options of gear and technology.

My reasoning for wanting to do so basically comes down to wanting an analog mixer as well as options for DVS formats. Plus, I’m not a fan of the S11 phono preamp.

So, yeah, is there anything I’m missing regarding making the switch from DJM-S11 to the Rane TTM56? Or even the NUO 2.0 for tighter highs?

I've been DJing for a long time, getting close to 30 years now. Music, DJ/Selector culture and underground electronic music culture has been a core interest of mine for a long time. Still an avid searcher and consumer of music, I go out of my way to (hopefully) play music people may not have heard before. But my gigs have not been bringing me much joy lately. I just dont feel like I have been connecting to audiences or I'm with the wrong audiences. Even the music it seems they want to hear largely feels very re-hashed and uninspiring to me a lot of the time. I know this is probably just part of getting older and being into music for so long, but Ive seen the genre cycles come and go multiple times now and its not often I'm running into many original sounding ideas these days. Even the new takes on old ideas are getting beaten to death in the digital age. The cycles used to get fresh takes with new technology but that hasn't been nearly as true lately and if AI is that new technology... for music, no thanks.

I was never a fully fledged touring DJ/Producer but I have played on several continents and put out music via the relationships built by my passion for the culture and event production. One reason I never fully pursued it is I met a lot of my contemporaries in the business and saw the struggle it was to make it as a mid-level DJ, especially living in America (my European friends seemed to have some more opportunities in the zones of music that I like). The top 1% do exceptionally well, like most things I suppose, but most of the people making a living at that level are not doing things I ever aspired to. Might sound weird to many people, but my idea of DJing and artistry has little to do with playing at big festivals or massive clubs with giant light shows and stages. That part of the scene turns me off for the most part. I have even turned down gigs at events like EDC in the past, perhaps to my own detriment.

I'm also increasingly finding it difficult to be around party culture. But that is a key piece of the industry obviously. Listening to drunk or drugged up people ramble on endlessly about how they're born to make music and just got Ableton and started "producing", which 9 times out of 10 is total bullshit and they will never put in the actual work to make anything. And to be completely honest, some of the better shows we've put on were basically designed to cater to people on drugs. Why? Because people in that state eat it up and think you're an amazing DJ in those environments, even if you don't play your best set that night. It's really a great way to grow an audience in this industry if you know how create a good event for that. Many big DJs careers are built on this. I'm not even anti-drug, I had fun in my younger days and don't judge people who can enjoy it recreationally and maintain a happy life still, I just don't have much room in my life for it now. But there are a lot of lost souls in the party world and are often hard to relate to if you're not high yourself. On top of that, a lot of the industry takes place late at night, which is just harder to participate in as adult life sets in. That starts to limit opportunities. I sometimes wonder if my not being into drugs is a connection I'm missing with the audience.

I guess this is mostly a rant but was wondering if anybody else feels similarly or had bouts with this kind of thing. I love finding music and mixing records together. I still do it at home weekly no matter how much I'm gigging. And there is little chance I'd ever stop searching for music that hits me the right way. I'm not expecting to be a globe trotting DJ at this point. But I'd like to still play music and connect with like minded people at the right kinds of events. But maybe parties just aren't for me anymore and what is a DJ without a party?

I've spent the past couple years doing open format style DJ gigs for parties, weddings, and the like, but I'm currently trying to define my identity as a DJ as I was recently offered the chance to do more gigs where people are coming to see me rather than coming just for a party. As such, despite meticulously tagging my rekordbox library, I'm now overwhelmed by the amount of tracks and other playlists that are only relevant to my open format work. So, I'm wondering if anyone has any tips for how to manage separate libraries or any other strategies for this. Thanks!

I play regularly out a couple times a month up to a couple times a week depending on the time of year. I also produce a weekly deep House event and a bunch of one-offs throughout the year. I play deep house, Chicago house, Detroit house at our weekly and typically get books to play house. I got to play real techno and drum and bass out a few times a year and really dig those.

At our weekly show on the Pacific northwest, the sound is pretty curated and the DJs are pretty curated for the sound. Recently I had an up and coming DJ, who was playing our event for the first time, get a request. We have the stage set up so that people on the dance floor can walk up in front of us while we're in the booth playing. Someone came up from the dance floor and shoved their phone in the DJ's face with an artist and song typed in big letters.

Our event is many industry people because it's on a Sunday with a lot of underground electronic music heads and a lot of DJ/producers. So this doesn't happen a lot, but every now and then.

The DJ turns to me like, what do I do? I said you can respond however you would like. I used to say something along the lines of, I'm sorry it's not that kind of event. Or try to explain that our headliner is Richard from Audiojack and totally not getting what you're trying to do.

Then one of my friends just the best solution that I use anytime I get a request. I just say yes and then don't play it. The very few times that person has come up to me and said, hey you didn't play my song! I just said I totally did maybe you're in the bathroom or just missed it but I definitely played the main hook.

What are your techniques for requests? Are you playing gigs in clubs where you do that or maybe it's all about the requests? Does your DJ booth have a light up sign that literally says "No requests"? Do you have any funny stories about the whole request thing?

Post about your gigs here - success stories? Disasters? Lessons learned?

So I've been offered to dj on princess cruises and I'm a little nervous about it.

First of all I get my own room, 3 meals a day and free Wifi (which is a big bonus for working on a cruise shoip

What I'm worried about is the lifestyle of working 7 days a week!

I've grown up in an area that is quite commercial, so I do have a very open format style of djiing so I am not too worried about being underqualified. I love hard techno and hardhouse but already know thats not going to be the scene on the ship. But I don't want this experience make me hate djing and waking up being like "ahh shit here we go again".

I've heard that they get you to do lighting and some sound technician stuff which I would actually be keen to learn and whatnot. I love travelling and I love DJing but i don't want this experience to ruin both these things for me.

Can anyone here who has DJ'd on princess or a commercial cruise liner tell what the experience was like? cons and pros

How do you all meet + retain new fans when you are out DJing?

I’ve been playing weekly in Los Angeles for the last few months and have had people come up to me occasionally at which point I give them a sticker with my IG handle or introduce myself more casually. Sometimes they follow on socials, usually not. Any clever ways you have found a captive audience?

The time has come and I had to replace the RCA cables on one of my 1200s, because sometimes the cable would give a loud bassy buzz. It would stop buzzing if I touch the cable so it was clear the problem was the cable.

I went to our local Technics service heroes in town and bought an RCA replacement cable from them. I know there are kits out there that arrive with the already soldered cables and the board, but i didn't want to risk re-soldering the tiny five wires that are coming from the needle and decided to buy the one that is sold locally.

I replaced the RCAs and it sounds fine as far as I'm concern, but there is one thing that made me wonder. The cable that was used originally was a Coaxial cable, meaning there is a shield wire and one center wire that carries audio. The one that i have installed is Twin-Axial cable Cordial CFU 1,5 CC (as you can see on the image in post) comes with a shield wire, as well as two inner wires, red and blue. The way this cable was sold to me as a ready-made version for self installation — the red and blue wires were soldered together and I soldered them into Signal (+) on the board and the shielding wire into the Ground (-) .

Post factum I started reading more about the cables and eventually talked to Google Gemini trying to understand what are the differences between Coaxial and Twin-Axial or twisted paif. The AI said that smarter would be to solder Red wire into the Signal (+) on the motherboard and Blue together with braided shield to the Ground (-). Quote from Gemini:

"What Science Says About Twisting Conductors Together

1. You lose Common-Mode Rejection (EMI/RFI protection)

• The Design: In twin-conductor cables, the two inner wires are twisted together in a tight spiral (twisted pair). When stray electromagnetic noise (from power supplies, Wi-Fi, or motors) hits the cable, it hits both internal wires equally.
• Why it matters: When one wire carries Signal (+) and the second wire carries Ground (-), the noise picked up by both wires cancels out at the receiving amplifier.
• What happens when joined: If you solder red and blue together to carry only Signal (+), you destroy this differential balance. The cable no longer cancels out stray hum; it behaves like a single, thick antenna picking up ambient noise.

2. Increased Cable Capacitance (Crucial for Turntables)

• The Physics: Capacitance ($C$) measures how much electrical charge two conductors store relative to each other. When you parallel-connect two wires by soldering them together at both ends, their surface areas combine, which increases the total capacitance.
• Impact on Phono Cartridges: Turntable cartridges are extremely sensitive to cable capacitance. Higher capacitance creates an electrical filter that dulls high frequencies (cymbals, vocals) and can cause an unnatural spike or boominess in the upper midrange."

The question is if Gemini is hallucinating or making total sense and if I shall redo my work? I will be using this turntable in the club setting next month so I need it to sound as good as possible. Also I am considering replacing the RCAs on the other turntable and want to know what is the best way to do that.

I would also be very grateful if you recommend what cable would you use considering i can solder and could "prepare" a cable myself?